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A Son Always Remembers His Father

In the 1930s, 40s and 50s, Yiddish radio flourished across the United States; from advice shows and variety shows to man-on-the-street interviews and news broadcasts. Yiddish radio gave listeners a unique window into American Jewish life, but sadly, much of the programming was lost.

Years later, when producer and ethnomusicologist Henry Sapoznik rediscovered hours of rare material, he — along with StoryCorps founder Dave Isay and fellow producer Yair Reiner — started the Yiddish Radio Project, a 10-part series that ran on NPR in 2002, and paid homage to the Golden Age of Yiddish radio.

In this episode of the StoryCorps podcast, we’re looking back at that golden age and one show in particular. It was called Reunion, and it reconnected people live on air. This is the story of how how Holocaust survivor Siegbert Freiberg reunited with his father.

Like the music in this episode? Support the artists:

“A day in Port-Royal” by Ending Satellites from the album And so sing the black birds

Transcript

Jasmyn Morris (JM): In this season of the StoryCorps podcast from NPR, we’re sharing stories of reunions. And we have to admit – we’re not the first to do this. Back in the 1940s, there was another radio program that actually reconnected people live on the air.

JM: In this episode of the podcast, we’ll revisit Reunion’s very first broadcast… the story of Holocaust survivor Siegbert Freiberg.

Siegbert Freiberg (SF): I was born and raised in Berlin. I was the only child of two wonderful parents. Our house was filled with music and we were happy. Then in 1938 everything changed.

JM: His mother and father were taken to different concentration camps. But Siegbert escaped and moved to New York City after the war. He had no idea what happened to his parents or if he would ever see them again. That is, until the radio show Reunion invited him on as a guest…

SF:For about twenty minutes after that my father and I just kept our arms around one another and sobbed. It is the first time I ever cried from happiness.

JM: I’m Jasmyn Morris. We’ll be back after this short break.

[SPONSOR]

JM: Welcome back. For this episode of the podcast, we’ve got something a little different for you – a journey back to the Golden Age of radio – and to the pre-StoryCorps days, when our founder Dave Isay was making radio documentaries.

In the early 2000s, Dave, along with producers Henry Sapoznik, and Yair Reiner uncovered one of the earliest remaining broadcasts featuring a Holocaust survivor telling his own story.

Let’s listen in to a portion of that broadcast from the 1940’s radio show, Reunion.

[Scored with organ] Berlin 1938… A man would open his door and answer to the bell… Peer out into the darkness and see a rifle pointed at him and a bright flash of flame… [gunshot sound effect]

A young man who lived through that reign of terror is our next guest on Reunion. His name is Siegbert Freiberg. He’s 21-years-old and he lives here in New York.

MB: Alright Mr. Freiberg…

Siegbert Freiberg (SF): I was born and raised in Berlin. I was the only child of two wonderful parents. Our house was filled with music and we were happy. Then in 1938 everything changed.

MB: How was that?

SF: One day there was a knock on our apartment door. Father went to answer it. The gestapo grabbed him and took him away.

MB: Where did they take him, Siegbert?

SF: To Buchenwald concentration camp…

MB: What did they do to your father at, uh, Buchenwald, Siegbert?

SF: Well, from the first moment they took him, my mother started fighting to get him released. You see Mr. Bolden, the Nazis hadn’t yet started full warfare, so there were a few welfare agencies that could still help.

MB: I see… Then she managed to get him released.

SF: Yes. He was released in 1939 after spending a year in Buchenwald. In the meantime, my mother had arranged to get him a passport to Shanghai and he left. Then, before he could send for us, the war broke and my mother and I were put into a munitions factory to turn out shells for the Nazis.

MB: How long did you stay in this munitions factory?

SF: Until one night they stopped me from going home. I knew it was coming because of something that had happened the day before. They had taken my mother to a concentration camp from which she never returned. But this particular night, they loaded all of us who were Jewish into trucks and started away with us. I knew that if I didn’t escape then I’d be dead. So when the guard on the truck wasn’t looking I managed to jump off and, since it was night time, he didn’t see me. Then I made my way to the suburbs of Berlin where a Catholic family who had been friends of my father’s and mother’s gave me shelter.

MB: How long did you stay there?

SF: They kept me hidden in their house for two and a half years, Mr. Bolden. Through the rest of the war… and then Germany was defeated.

MB: And you came to America?

SF: That’s right…

MB: And all this time you haven’t seen your father who’s been over there in Shanghai?

SF: No sir…

MB: Do you think you’d know him after all these years? You know, you were just a young boy when you last saw him.

SF: I’m sure I would Mr. Bolden. A son always remembers his father.

MB: Well now Siegbert, we want to you to turn around and see if you know him.

[Sounds of emotional reunion and clapping]

MB: Ladies and gentlemen it’s really a touching scene. A father and son… got each other in their arms. This elderly gentleman is really broken down with emotion. He can’t speak… and the son, of course, tears of joy are going down their cheeks. And believe me gentleman and ladies listening to me now, I have never seen such a touching scene in all my life. Ladies and gentleman… they stand together there in each other’s arms and the emotion of the moment is really too much for them. And believe me, it’s almost too much for me too.

[End Reunion radio clip]

JM: Next, we’ll hear from Siegbert 50 years after reuniting with his father… Stay with us.

[SPONSOR]

JM: Welcome back.

More than 50 years after Siegbert reunited with his father, radio producers Dave Isay, Henry Sapoznik and Yair Reiner tracked him down to get the rest of the story…

[Piano Music In]

SF: My name is Siegbert Freiberg and I’m now 75 years old. I haven’t heard this program since it was broadcast. What I said on that radio show is almost exactly what happened. I was arrested by the Nazis on February 27, 1943. I was taken to a collection point. There, fortunately, I fell down a stairway and broke a leg, which still surprises me since all the Jews were next taken to a German railroad station and sent off to Auschwitz. I don’t think if anybody ever came back. But, with my broken leg, now I’m surprised that some SS man just didn’t take out a pistol and shot me but I was lucky. This fellow called an ambulance and I was brought to – it was still called the Jewish Hospital – in Berlin.

[Piano Music Out]

SF: When I was in the hospital, amazingly enough at that time, a social worker came to my room and asked me if she could notify somebody where I am. I said, “Yes… my mother has a gentile acquaintance.” And I gave that woman the address in the Berlin suburbs.

[Piano Music In]

SF: A week or two later, that gentile acquaintance of my mother’s with this German friend of hers came to visit me. And this German friend of hers – I was 13 at the time – but I fell in love with that lady. She was so warm-hearted so she felt all my troubles and had tears in her eyes. I think I fell in love with that woman at that particular point.

I still lived in that place inside the hospital. I was afraid the Gestapo next door… I had terrible thoughts and one day I decided to run away. When it was still dark, I took my little suitcase, sneaked out of the hospital and went to the house of the beautiful girl who came to visit me. I came there with my little suitcase and said, “Will you help me? Because I’m in very dangerous conditions in the hospital. Can you take care of me?”

And she lived with her parents – very nice Germans. They took care of me. I spent the entire time until the end of the war with them.

[Piano Music Out]

SF: I arrived in the United States on July 15, 1946. After one year, I was contacted by a Jewish agency who knew my father was still in Shanghai and asked if I would appear on a radio show but I was actually never told that I would be reunited with my father. It was a complete surprise to me.

[Reunion radio clip, interweaved with SF narration]

MB: His name is Siegbert Freiberg. He is 21 years old…

SF: It was actually a rather empty stage. There was a desk. Mr. Bolden was there at one microphone. I was in front of another microphone and that was actually it.

MB: Do you think you’d know him after all these years?

SF: A son always remembers his father.

MB: Well now Siegbert…

SF: And after he spoke this little verse for ten minutes, “Would you recognize your father?” Then they pushed my father out from the side of the stage. He looked broken down but I recognized him right away. He recognized me.

[Sounds of emotional reunion]

SF: We both couldn’t understand each other but tears all over the place. It was really the most moving moment of my life.

[Organ music ends]

SF: The show was so popular that my father and I were invited to come back next week.

MB: Now Siegbert, will you tell our listeners what you did since last Sunday’s broadcast?

SF: For about twenty minutes after that my father and I just kept our arms around one another and sobbed. It is the first time I ever cried from happiness. And I don’t think I will ever have a happier moment in all my life.

MB: Well, I can believe that alright Siegbert.

SF: We’ve been talking steadily since last Sunday and we haven’t even scratched the surface. Of course, there were a few things that I had to tell my father which I hated. I had to tell him about mother’s death in the concentration camp and how all our relatives had been killed too.

MB: Well then that leaves only you and your father then?

SF: That’s right, Mr. Bolden.

MB: Have you been showing your father around New York?

SF: I’ve had him every place Mr. Bolden. Up to the top of the Empire State Building, out to Coney Island, down in the subways, up 5th Avenue to see the stores, and on Broadway at night to see all the lights. I just can’t seem to show him enough. There’s so much we both have to be grateful for that we can’t begin to tell you now. But my father who has learned just a little English expressed that – when I told him of the Statue of Liberty. Father, tell him what you said…

Father: Thank God for America…

SF: Father never spoke any English. He only knew four words. And somebody ask him anything in English and he didn’t understand, he diplomatically said, ‘Thank God for America.’ And he meant it.

MB: Thank you Siegbert and Mr. Freiberg… [Applause] May you be happy and together always. [Applause]

[Piano Music In]

SF: My father gave me a steamship ticket to Germany so that I could visit the German family which helped me really survive Nazi-ism. And so I went back to Berlin started getting together with that German family. Now actually, I had really fallen in love with that young lady – the daughter of the family – and I made up my mind… I have to marry that woman. She was a few years older than I was but a wonderful person and I figured I could not live without her. So I asked her whether she would and she said, “Yes,” and, now, we are still madly in love with each other and have been married for 45 years.

JM: This story comes from a documentary series called the Yiddish Radio Project… produced by StoryCorps founder Dave Isay, Henry Sapoznik, and Yair Reiner. NPR’s Weekend Edition first broadcast this in 2002… the year Siegbert died.

To see photos from the on-air reunion you just heard about, visit our website, www.storycorps.org.

That’s it for this week. Our producer is Jud Esty-Kendall. Our engineer is Michael Raphael, script editors are Sylvie Lubow and Danielle Roth.

We’d love to hear from you. You can write us a review on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, or leave us a voicemail at 301 744 TALK.

For the StoryCorps podcast, I’m Jasmyn Morris. Until next week, thanks for listening.